Quote Originally Posted by Masamune·1600
Penance, as far as I can tell, doesn't really have any bearing on the plot
Great, thanks!

BTW, I have added all the imput from this thread to my "prequel" to FFX on Fan Fiction.net
If you want to check it out, it's at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2693791/1/

In it I make Bevelle harvest Spira's pirefly energy because an alien ship is threatening them. The story would work pretty well without the alien ship bit but I thought that having Bevelle starting a war just to better mine their world's best energy source - pireflies - and then using religion to keep it's citizens content hit too close to home, if you get my drift..
(If you don't get it just switch "Pirefly energy" with "Oil" and voila!)